Nine Black Dots
by Adeya
Summary: Shikamaru has a puzzle, and he just can't figure it out... a little bit of InoShika but it's almost invisible


**I decided to write another oneshot, figured it would give me something to do not to mention I've been planning this for a loooong time. Please enjoy.**

**I do not Own Naruto**

Shikamaru sat in the middle of a field, his field to be exact, a piece of paper was clutched in his hand and he pressed it to his leg as he forcefully erased his mistake, before carefully connecting the small dots on the page, again. It was a circle that had started this morning as he had opened his morning newspaper and decided to work on the crosswords and brainteasers for a bit'o fun. He had breezed though everything before he had run across the epitome of troublesome, and four hours later he had yet to solve it.

Maybe Naruto had finally rubbed off on him, was stupidity contagious? Shikamaru had never heard of it in any books he had read but if he didn't figure the damn puzzle out soon he'd dedicate the rest of his life to staying away from the airheaded blond.

"Ohayo Shika!" Make that blonds. Shika_maru_ pretended that he hadn't heard Ino and continued working on his puzzle.

"Shika, I know you can hear me..." The young konoichi glared at the back of his pineapple styled head before peering over his shoulder.

"So whatch'ya doin'?" He mentally sighed, why was his life so troublesome.

"I'm attempting to do something Ino." He made sure his voice was even more of a lazy drawl then normal.

"I can see that Shika, I do have common sense... but what exactly are you attempting?" He barely managed to evade her snatch at the piece of paper that came after her words.

"Mendokuse, something that you can't help me with Ino..." Shikamaru was telling the truth, Ino's intelligence was scarcely above average.

"And why the hell not?" She was now kneeling in-front of him, slowly leaning forward.

"Tell me Oh Great Shikamaru." Her eyes daring the Nara boy to give her the wrong answer, before her arm shot out and grabbed a hold of the puzzle. It took a few seconds for the fact that she was no longer in front of him to kick in.

"Ino... you have three seconds to give it back." He slowly stood moving into a fighting stance, shadows covering his eyes.

"Tell me what your trying to do first" Shikamaru flopped back onto the grass covered ground, figures, Ino didn't have the brain capacity to feel killer intent. There was only one thing he could do, and not get pummeled to death later because of it.

"There are nine dotes; three dots in three lines on that page, you need to connect all of them together using _only_ four perfectly straight lines that need to be connected."

"Is that all?" Her face peered into his, uncharacteristically blank.

"Yes..."

"Give me your pencil." The girl knew nothing about the word tact but he handed it over nonetheless, then sat back and watched as his team mate start his puzzle. A few seconds later she growled and erased her mistake. This happened a couple more times before her eyes lit up.

"I wonder..." She carefully moved the pencil along the page making sure to keep it out of his view before quickly erasing it again, but this time she handed back the piece of paper and writing utensil.

"That was kinda fun." A grin covered half of Ino's face.

"Your shittin' me?" was his oh so intelligible reply.

"Nope." Her grin grew even bigger.

Shikamaru opted for facing the opposite direction of her and grumbling under his breath 'liar'.

"Hm, you say something Shika? I couldn't hear you through all the jealousy." He had the suspicion that she was still smiling.

"Mendokuse... stupid annoying blond females and their stupidity..."

"Ya know what Shika, you don't always need to be smart or a genius to figure out situations or problems, it just depends on how the person who's solving them thinks-" she leaned over his shoulder again "Maybe _you_ need to start thinking _outside_ the box."

Shikamaru refused to reply to her comment and continued doing the same mistake again, hoping that there was something that he had missed.

"Try something new Shika." Ino offered her long hair draped over _his _shoulder, effectively distracting him.

"Ino why are you here?" He wasn't making any progress, what was it that Ino saw that he didn't?

"Oh yea..." She grabbed a hold of his pony tail and pulled his head back until he was able to make eye contact with her.

"Asuma-sensai wants advice on what to buy Kurenai for Valantines, 'cause he didn't like mine..."

"And what was that Ino?"

"To buy a hundreds of roses and lay them all around her house." The young girls face was so serious it was almost comical.

"Tell him that's what I said..." Shikamaru knew that eventually Asuma would seek him out for real advice later if he was really desperate, until then he wasn't willingly leaving this spot until his puzzle was done.

"Hey Shika?"

"Yea?"

Ino looked into his eyes, her eyebrows curved into a slight frown.

"Sometimes the right answer isn't always with obvious rules that aren't really there and if they are they need to be broken, so... like I said, look outside the box, kay?" She looked into his eyes one more time before kissing him on the forehead and letting go of his hair. Mere seconds later she was running down the path to civilization.

"...Mendokuse..." Why was Ino so troublesome? Talking about the outside of bo-

Shikamaru mentally beat himself over the head, before going back to the object of his hatred, and using only four lines and the outside of the box the nine dots made, defeated the puzzle.

He looked down at his victory, maybe Ino wasn't so troublesome, and maybe he should spend more time with blonds.

**The end**

**I tried to make this in character, but I failed..., also my teacher gave me the same puzzle as a bonus once on a test... I didn't get the bonus... -.-' in my defence, I only hade about 30 seconds to work on it.**


End file.
